Wednesday, March 05, 2008

City Walks

I do have a chapbook. I said yesterday, if I had a chapbook I would send it to writers I admire. I have a chapbook and I haven’t sent it to writers I admire. I don’t have copies sitting around but I have the pdf created by Broken Boulder Press, the guys who put the thing out in the first place. You can even download it yourself, if you’re of the mind. Follow the Broken Boulder link.

So why haven’t I followed my own advice? Why haven’t I sent it out to writers I admire? Part of it is that I don’t have physical copies – although that could be fixed with a trip to the copy shop, couldn’t it? I’ll have to review the pdf and see how easy it would be to have it printed. Part of it is a variant on what David said in Comments yesterday. He said, “The trouble with mailing out [Misspent Youths] now is that it's not representative of me now. I'm quite proud of it for what it was. I'm happy to give it to anyone who might like it.” City Walks is a particular project and I’d prefer to mail off a book that contains a greater variety, so if the reader doesn’t like one poem, there’s another chance with the next. Yet I’m not ashamed of City Walks; I think it’s good. I suppose part of that is just the feeling that I’m afraid my heroes won’t like anything I write. Then there’s the idea that I will write some amazing fan letter that has to go with whatever I send. Such obstacles I find hulking before me, monsters mainly vaporous.

So it goes. Sending the work out to people you like – it’s such a good idea that David has already done it. Someday maybe me.